Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

August 5, 2007

 

Hosea 11:1-11

Psalm 107:1-9, 43

Colossians 3:1-11

Luke 12:13-21

 

           If you have ever spent time with a toddler who is beginning to talk you know that one of the first words they learn to say after “mommy” or “daddy” is “mine.”  And it is so cute, isn’t it.  So cute, that we are likely to reward the child by allowing him to have what may or may not belong to him at all.  The problem is that soon everything becomes more emphatically “MINE” as a child enjoys such power and success by his saying so.  At some point, however, most parents will begin telling a child that not everything he has or everything he is given can be regarded as “mine.”  Most likely the child will begin to cry until he gets what he wants or gets to keep what he has.  Parents who continue to give into such tantrums often find themselves with a child who begins to just take what he wants, even out of the hands of another child or adult; because he believes with all his heart that whatever he can take away from someone else belongs to him.  He will learn to do what he must to have it, to keep it, and control it. 

              This is a natural phase of development in  children.  Christians might call it a natural result of human sin which is evident in our own brokenness and in our broken relationships with God and with each other.  At some point during the “mine” stage of a child’s development, most parents realize that he cannot continue to grow up thinking that he is the center of the universe and everyone and everything around him exists to serve his wants and needs.  At some point parents know that a child must learn to share what he has, and even give it to others.  If the child is growing up in the faith, scripture and well-meaning mentors will teach him that, in fact, giving or sharing what is so generously given or shared with us is God’s purpose for us in this world.  Because in the end, God’s purpose for us in creation is to be in caring relationship and healthy community with each other and with God.  And one thing is certain.  It is impossible for a self-absorbed, self-serving person to be in relationship with anybody.  Because for such a person life is always centered in I and Me and MINE.

              Have you known people like this?  I have.  Have there been times when you have experienced these characteristics in yourself?  I have.  The difference for a follower of Christ, however, is that we know the difference.  Eventually, the I, ME, MINE that expresses itself in us feels wrong.  Actions centered in I, ME and MINE begin to make us feel empty and broken, cut off and isolated from the religious practices centered in the You and Us and Ours of our faith.  We realize that we are not practicing what we preach or pray, and we are not living by rule of faith.  Our I, ME and MINE disconnect does not allow us to live into the promises of the YOU, US and OURS of God’s kingdom.  A kingdom God brought to earth by sending his son to model the YOU, US and OURS of relationship.  Relationship with God and with others in our world which depends upon our growing out of our childish self-centerdness into a self-giving adult, maturing in faith and in sound religious practices.

              Unfortunately, the world doesn’t make it easy for us to live the mature life of a practicing Christian. The world is always showing us how to be self-centered and self-serving children.  And we certainly have a lot of models of immaturity out there in the world.  Models which show us that I, ME and MINE is the only way to live.  And there are people all around us who applaud them, even hope to be like them.  Our newspapers and TV media will tell you who they are.  And they will take great delight to tell you how and why they succeed or fail by the world’s standards of I, ME and MINE. 

But there are also people in our world who model YOU, US and OURS.  They are often featured in short segments of print and visual media in what is called “soft news.”   They are the people who quietly go about the business of serving the needs of others by the generous ways they give of themselves and their material resources to their need.  Sometimes they receive even greater media exposure after a tragic event of great magnitude, like the fall of the I-W35 bridge in Minneapolis this past week.  We often call such people heroes for the selfless ways they act to help others during a catastrophic event.  But if you ask these heroes about the extraordinary things they did, they will tell you that what they did was not heroic at all.  In fact, during the crisis they could not even think of their own safety and well-being.  All they could think of was You/Us and Our which came naturally to them by our God given gift for relationship.  They acted out of our natural and God given desire to sacrifice I, ME and MINE for the safety and well-being of others. 

              Our best and most consistent examples for living into the mature life of YOU, US and OUR come to us in scripture.   We who attend church regularly hear the stories of sharing and giving and self-sacrifice for a larger purpose and a greater good than our own.  We also hear stories of people like the rich fool in our gospel lesson today who insists on living in an I, Me and My universe.  A self-made fool who forgets that it is God who has made him.  A self-seeking fool who forgets who has provided him the with gifts and natural resources which enabled him to become rich in the things of this world.  A self-serving fool whose sole purpose is to eat, drink and be merry, without any interest or concern for the moral imperatives of scripture, the ethical responsibilities of living in community, or the legal rights of another whose inheritance has been stolen from him.  Jesus tells us the story of the rich fool so that we can examine our own life to see where we have become stuck in the same kinds of immature thinking and behavior. 

              The story Jesus tells about the rich man is prompted by a request.  Someone comes out of the crowd to say to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.”  Now, knowing Jesus as we do, this seems like a fair request, doesn’t it?  It is certainly consistent with Jesus’ concern for justice.  In fact, it is likely the man makes this request because Jesus is teaching on the topic of justice.  But Jesus recognizes a flaw in his request.  The flaw is this.  Justice in this case will only serve the greed of a man whose only interest in his inheritance is I, Me and Mine.  So Jesus averts responding to this request for justice to deal with the real issue in it.  He tells the story of the rich man whose riches and abundance are increasing so rapidly, he must tear down his inadequate barns so that he can build larger ones to hold ample goods which will guarantee a life of leisure and the enjoyment of excess.

              But the lesson in Jesus’ story is not about the accumulation of wealth and the abundance of material resources.  In fact, Jesus is not opposed to people earning or inheriting treasure.  What Jesus is opposed to is storing up treasure for one’s self-centered, self-serving, and self-fulfilling purposes.  He is opposed to people who believe that they are self-made.  People who believe they deserve what they have been privileged to get, and they have the right to keep it for themselves.  Jesus opposes people who value money and material possessions above anything else, especially people, and he opposes the fact that their life’s purpose is only to accumulate more of both and find larger and more secure ways of protecting it.  

              Jesus calls the rich man foolish, because after he dies, his money and possessions will be the objects of controversy for relatives who will fight over them, and people who will never be satisfied with the moral, ethical or legal terms of settlement.  People who will only continue in his ways of greed and excess.  People who will store up treasures for themselves, but they will not be rich toward God. 

              It is interesting that in Jesus’ story this rich man asks himself the right question about the wealth and possessions which he is rapidly accumulating.  “What should I do?” he asks.  He comes up with the right answer by the world’s standards, but the wrong answer by God’s standards.  By using the rich man as a bad example, Jesus tells us exactly what people of God should do with their treasure.  Jesus wants us to know that first of all, that we are not self-made people.  No matter how smart or talented, or lucky, or well connected we are in the ways we come by our money and possessions, it is God who has made us.  It is God who has gifted us at birth with our ability and it is God who has given us the resources of this world to prosper in it.  We need to remember that our money and possessions are meant not only to serve us and those we choose to benefit by them; they are meant to serve the purposes of God’s kingdom on this earth.  God would have us give back to the world in proportion to the generosity we have received from the circumstances of our birth and from the opportunities we have been given to have money and possessions.  We need to remember that God wants us to have all we need and even things that are reasonable to want, but storing up money and possessions for the sake of having them and accumulating them—well, that benefits no one.  In fact, the money and possessions we store up will only control us, and we will use them to control others.  We become slaves to growing our treasure and protecting it.  And the message we continue to give to the world is, “MINE.”  It is as if we are digging a hole in the midst of people who are suffering and in need.  We let them look on as we bury our treasure and seal up the hole where it will proceed to rot rather than be used for God’s greater good.   

           Which brings us to the most important thing we need to remember.  We need to remember that God places the highest value, not on the accumulation of treasure, but on the ways we care for each other in by the use of our treasure.  God made us for relationship with him and with each other.  Money and material possessions are not meant to get in the way of  relationship, nor are they meant to divide and separate communities by distinctions of wealth and poverty; God’s justice compels us to be certain that the basic needs of the many are served by the resources granted to a few.  And so in the end, Jesus does answer the man’s request for justice in receiving a fair share of his brother’s inheritance.  But his answer is not about whether justice is served by the laws of inheritance; it is about whether or not what we inherit serves the rule of justice.

              A few years ago I had the opportunity to watch several programs of the Suzie Orman show on a local TV station.  For those of you who don’t know, Suzie Orman gives sound financial advice to people who have lots of money, and people who have no money and lots of debt.  Regardless of the advice she gives about money and possessions and indebtedness, Suzie always ends her show with her most important rule for living.  “Remember,” she says.  “People first.  Then money.  Then things.”  I have been blessed to learn this lesson from many people in my life.  And I feel compelled to tell you the story of one such person. 

She was my high school health and physical education teacher.  In my mind she was a beautiful and intelligent woman.  She came from Jamaica and had a lovely British accent.  She was elegant, I thought, even in her gym clothes.  I thought that she must be rich, but there was nothing she ever said or did to make me believe that was true.  Then, one day on a bus trip to another school for an athletic event, the bus took us through a particularly impoverished neighborhood.  I was shocked when she told a few of us that she lived in this neighborhood.  She pointed out a rather non-descript brick apartment building, a bit more attractive than the ones surrounding it.  Then she told us why she lived there.  Her husband was a doctor, and when they were married they decided that they would live in a place where they could best serve the health and educational needs of people who needed them most.  Well, my already high regard of this teacher soared to places I did not know existed for me.  She gave me a gift which would never stop giving.  It was not money; it was not material things.  It was knowing that she loved teaching kids like us and she cared about us more than the money or things she could have accumulated living and working in a more prosperous community.  I am one who prospered by the gift of her sacrifice of wealth and possessions for a higher purpose and a greater good.  And I would like to think that by the prosperity of my own life, I have done what I can to pay that forward.

              I am sure you have your own stories to tell about a person who had a great impact on your life.  I’ll bet it wasn’t about the money they had or the things they owned.  I’ll bet it was because of the special relationship you had with that person.  Perhaps it was about what he or she was willing to sacrifice for your greater good.  Whatever it was, I trust that you also have your own stories about the ways you are paying that forward.  That is God’s hope for us in this life; that we will give our money and possessions and ourselves to others in relationship in proportion to the money and possessions and relationships which have been given to us. 

           Winston Churchill once said, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.”  What that says to me in view of our gospel lesson today is this:  If we live only to make a living, we will never get enough or have enough.  If we live to make a life, we will never be able to give enough.